Hello Everyone, :cheers:
This happens to be my first post on expat.com, so please bear with me.
After trying a lot everywhere else yet not being able to find much help, I hope I can get some useful advice and suggestions here, to resolve my issue.
Before I delve into the issue, a little background on me for the purpose of giving you more clarity. I'm a 22 yr old student from India and this happens to be the first time that I planned for a trip abroad, since I have a few Friends & Acquaintances from Oman (basically to meet them and for tourism).
So the visa process to Oman not being straightforward, this has been dragged on for quite sometime, first in the search of finding a sponsor and then finding a way to clear the visa. Being a student I was trying to keep my travel costs low, however that was not possible if I had to go the travel agency way. So I thought of trying to find someone who could sponsor me (my Friends & Acquaintances are students like me so they can't sponsor me) and unfortunately, I failed miserably in that. So, finding no other way I had to come the Travel Agency way, which I half heartedly did, though I was still trying to look for ways to lower the costs by negotiating in which I again failed as most agencies were not ready for that. (I was told that I can't make bookings on my own and have to take an all inclusive package to be able to get Visa assistance, which of course skyrocketed the budget as I could book hotels only with them for the whole of my stay, while I was able to get better deals on my own). Anyhow, again not finding any other way I finally applied with an all inclusive package with a 10 Days Visa in all my excitement but to my utter disappointment, my Visa Application had been rejected for which I was given no reason by the Travel Agency. So I applied again through another travel agency, and got rejected again, this time being given the reason that I had to clear my previous visa application. So I contacted the previous travel agency and after a great deal of negotiations with the help of Oman Tourism Office in India, was told by the travel agency that this time I must provide my credentials that prove that my travel plans are legitimate and I don't plan on staying back in Oman illegally seeking employment opportunity, and depending on my response they would see if to go forward or not. So, I told them my legitimate reasons of travel which they didn't like and so questioned my persistence on travelling to Oman. So, this time the travel agency itself refused to help me further with the Visa (Gah!). Anyhow, keeping with my persistence on travelling to Oman (yes with the legitimate purpose of meeting my Friends & Acquaintances and tourism) I again approached this previous agency with the help of my Omani Friends & Acquaintances. So this time I provided some extra documentations and my Omani acquaintance told me that the agency will get back soon, anyhow after some waiting and not getting any answer from them, we approached them again and were again refused for the Visa Application. After consulting a few other agencies I was told by one that I should persuade the previous agency as a two time rejection in the Oman Visa Authorities database would have created a Red Flag against my passport and that could also cause problems in the future if I happen to plan on visiting some other GCC country (i.e. UAE, Bahrain etc).
At this point I'm quite frustrated with this whole thing, yet I still wouldn't want to miss visiting Oman to meet my friends and tour around. If I MUST answer my persistence on travelling to Oman, I have a valid personal reason which I would prefer to not talk about here.
So I would like to know what could I do next? How else could I prove to them that I do not intend on staying back in Oman and would return back (I've already provided them my credentials like my college bonafide certificate, fathers credentials etc which I thought would prove my legitimacy). Would giving them the personal reason of persistence to travel help my cause?
Any sort of suggestion, advice, help is very much welcome. So please drop in and let me know if you have anything.
Thanks a lot for reading this long one. Much Appreciated.
Cheers!
Himanshu
Oman
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